Christian Horner believes that Lewis Hamilton can win the race as his straight-line speed in Interlagos was incredible on Saturday.
Lewis Hamilton is set to chase Max Verstappen from his P10 start at Interlagos. And his sprint race performance does prove that the Briton can indeed do it.
Christian Horner holds the same belief. After seeing Hamilton’s performance in the sprint race, Horner is afraid of his straight-line speed and thinks that the reigning champion can win in Brazil.
P20 👉👉👉 P5@LewisHamilton put on an overtaking show on Saturday!#BrazilGP 🇧🇷 #F1Sprint pic.twitter.com/erH6WjvMIi
— Formula 1 (@F1) November 13, 2021
“I mean look with Lewis’ pace that he had today, he can win this race tomorrow,” Horner said. “It will be very hard to defend against him with that kind of pace. We’ve got to get our head down, do the best job we can and go from there.”
“We can only control what we do. We’re going to go for it and we’re on the front row. We’ve got those two points today that are vital.”
Not surprised with Lewis Hamilton pole in qualifying
Not just the sprint race, the qualifying was also led by Mercedes. Though, this time instead of Valtteri Bottas, it was Hamilton on the top. But the DRS infringement issue scrapped his pole and promoted Verstappen for the sprint race qualifying.
But Hamilton was four-tenths of a second above the Dutch sensation in the Friday’s qualifying standings. And Horner is not a little bit surprised with Mercedes’ pace prowess.
“Well, to be honest, it’s no real surprise because we saw it yesterday. Lewis’ straight-line speed is just mind-boggling,” he added. “For us, I think losing the start.
“They took the gamble on the soft tyres, we obviously started on the medium and had a bit of an issue with the gear sync [with Verstappen]. Still front row here, two more points. We will take that and it’s a different race tomorrow, much hotter.”
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